Fauwaz abdul aziz filed a late report for Malaysiakini http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/84931 and he questioned,” Why the debate when the decision has already been made and executed? Parliament approved of the restructuring of unsustainable fuel subsidies, including the June 5 petrol and diesel price hikes.The government motion was carried with 129 voting in favour and 78,all from the opposition, voting against.
I was having coffee late today as usual $1.20 now(up 20cents) with my petrol station operator and he was very unhappy with the Government. We still get the same commissions 9% and the 23000 litres from the tanker costs us everyday $60000 “cash” to pay the oil companies. If only we were informed that prices would go up in August we would have made the necessary provisions. What to do..? Decision already made 129-78.
However he supports the declination of credit facilities by credit card. Its a business decision. After the fuel price hike we, petrol station operators have to cut costs. I feel sorry for some of my friends in this business especially in KL. 80% of their clienteles are using credit cards. WE know,and the real reason (it takes 3 days for the merchant houses to process the payment) Shhhhsss!
He told me and I for one missed out on Musings with Marina Mahathir on June 18th “You Walk the Talk First”. After going through it I do feel its worth re-posting her full article and I appreciate it if she does not sue me for copyright infringement. Hehehe. By the way ,Marina binti Mahathir is the daughter of the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir Mohammad. She is well known as a leader in many non-governmental organizations and is currently an active socio-political blogger.
WITH the recent hike in fuel prices and the Government’s exhortations for us to change our lifestyles in order to cope, may I provide here some suggestions for the Government and those who work for it to “share our burden”.
1. Stop having meetings, especially out at resorts, far enough away to be able to claim transport allowances. Have online meetings instead or teleconferences. Use Skype or chat.
2. No need to order special pens, bags, T-shirts, notepads and other goodies for those same meetings.
3. No need to order kuih for mid-morning or teatime meetings in government offices, or nasi briyani lunches for those meetings that happen to end just at lunchtime.
4. Cancel all trips for government servants to conferences overseas unless they return with full reports of what they did there, who they met and what they learnt and how they mean to apply what they learnt at home. Ask them to do presentations to colleagues who did not get to go, on the most interesting and important papers that they read.
5. Scrutinise invoices for contracts to make sure they are truly reflective of what those projects or supplies cost.
6. Stop elaborate launches for government programmes. In particular, stop the buying of souvenirs, special batik shirts, corsages, bouquets and caps.
7. Make all civil servants and politicians travel economy class. That means really travelling at the back of the plane and not buying full fare economy class tickets that allow them to be upgraded to Business Class.
8. Stop having the full complement of police escorts to cut down on petrol costs. If they need to be somewhere by a certain time, start earlier like the rest of us. Wouldn’t be a bad thing for them to also experience a traffic jam.
9. Once a week (or more), have ministers use public transport so they know what everyone else has to suffer. This might provide them with the incentive to improve them.
10. Once a week, let ministers go to a market to buy food for their families with instructions to not spend more than RM100.
11. Get ministers to carpool. They might get more work done just by being able to talk to each other to see what can be coordinated between their ministries. For instance, the Ministers of Health and Women could discuss what to do about women’s health issues in the car on the way to work. Maybe have a secretary to travel in the front seat to take down notes on what was discussed. By the time they get to their offices, things can get implemented.
12. Once a month, get civil servants to work with one disadvantaged group in order to be better able to appreciate their problems. It could be blind people one month, hearing disabled people the next, orang asli the following month and people living with HIV/AIDS after that.
We could start buddy systems which pair one civil servant with one disadvantaged person and at the end of it, ask each pair to make recommendations on how to make life better for each other. This might get rid of the problem of desk jockeys, people who never stray very far from their desks yet make policies for people they know nothing about.
13. Have PA systems that shout out the name of the officers who have to serve people at government offices so that people get the services they came for and don’t have to keep coming back just because the officer was out having coffee.
No counter should be left unmanned for more than five minutes before the officer is paged to go back to their stations. This should cut down waiting time for the public and save them transport costs in having to keep returning just to get one thing done.
14. Government officers who lose people’s files should be fined and have their names publicised for being careless and causing inconvenience to the public. Instead of making the public travel to their offices several times to deal with their problems, they should travel to go see their client and deal with it right there and then.
And every officer who goes out of the office should be given a reasonable time to get his work done after which he is expected back in office so he doesn’t waste time doing something else.
15. And newspapers should save paper by reporting real news rather than non-news that they carry, particularly nonsensical utterances by politicians.
As they say, we need to do this all together in order to make a difference. So if the Government and politicians make these lifestyle changes, I will do my part and change mine.
Cheerio!! We feel that No. 11 should be practised more by our YBS. Very True……..
Audie61's Weblog 
Have you ever seen PIG climbing trees? Feel sorry for those who believe it.
LETS WAIT FOR THE 13 GE, AND KICK THESE 129 MP OUT OF THE CORRIDOOORS OF PARLIMENT.
THEY ARE THE ACTUAL CAUSE, SUFFERING OF THE RAKYAT. PLEASE DEAR RAKYAT OF MALAYSIA. WAKE UP AND SEE WHAT HAS THESE PEST 129 MP HAS DONE TO OUR LIFE’S.
Alright! The list came a little extreme to me, but most of it is correct. There’s got to be a mechanism to reduce waste and control of the purse! The government protocol has to be reduce for all of the elected officials attending meetings.
We can let them eat kuih during meeting, but when PM is focus on cutting cost then let’s all carry the burden and pain. The rakyat can be fooled again and again, but wait till the next time you need them. They might no longer rubberstamp your candidacy.
Sabah and Sarawak are paying much much higher in food prices and now to top it off, we are now burden with high fuel prices which our states produce… WHY WHY? What about the funny stuffs in Petronas book MPs are talking about? If the MPs cannot understand it, let us try to understand out in the open!!!!
Anwar, where is your frogs now? Or are you just saying it! If you are also playing games with us, you will also be reduced to nothing soon. Lead by showing not noise!
:-D 129-78 We will overturn this very soon Grrrrrrr
I agreed with ABD KALAM, Let’s send BN/UMNO to HELL FOREVER! They are making RAKYAT SUFFER more and more.
Audie, i totally agree with all that marina has written. Pray tell me, how many of these mp’s read her blog in order for them be aware of whats required? she should have recommended them when her dad was in power.